A brave person. These are threats not only against her, but her family, both here and in Syria. I love the answer of her debating opponent, "there is no point in rebuking or debating her, because she has blasphemed against Islam, the Prophet Muhammad and the Quran", ....spoken like a comfortable misogynist demagogue.

Today, thanks to an unusually blunt and provocative interview on Al Jazeera television on Feb. 21, she is an international sensation, hailed as a fresh voice of reason by some, and by others as a heretic and infidel who deserves to die.

In the interview, which has been viewed on the Internet more than a million times and has reached the e-mail of hundreds of thousands around the world, Dr. Sultan bitterly criticized the Muslim clerics, holy warriors and political leaders who she believes have distorted the teachings of Muhammad and the Koran for 14 centuries.

She said the world’s Muslims, whom she compares unfavorably with the Jews, have descended into a vortex of self-pity and violence.

Dr. Sultan said the world was not witnessing a clash of religions or cultures, but a battle between modernity and barbarism, a battle that the forces of violent, reactionary Islam are destined to lose.

In response, clerics throughout the Muslim world have condemned her, and her telephone answering machine has filled with dark threats. But Islamic reformers have praised her for saying out loud, in Arabic and on the most widely seen television network in the Arab world, what few Muslims dare to say even in private.

“I believe our people are hostages to our own beliefs and teachings,” she said in an interview this week in her home in a Los Angeles suburb.

Dr. Sultan, who is 47, wears a prim sweater and skirt, with fleece-lined slippers and heavy stockings. Her eyes and hair are jet black and her modest manner belies her intense words: “Knowledge has released me from this backward thinking. Somebody has to help free the Muslim people from these wrong beliefs.”

Perhaps her most provocative words on Al Jazeera were those comparing how the Jews and Muslims have reacted to adversity. Speaking of the Holocaust, she said, “The Jews have come from the tragedy and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling.”

She went on, “We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people.”

She concluded, “Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.”

Her views caught the ear of the American Jewish Congress, which has invited her to speak in May at a conference in Israel. “We have been discussing with her the importance of her message and trying to devise the right venue for her to address Jewish leaders,” said Neil B. Goldstein, executive director of the organization.

She is probably more welcome in Tel Aviv than she would be in Damascus. Shortly after the broadcast, clerics in Syria denounced her as an infidel. One said she had done Islam more damage than the Danish cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad, a wire service reported.

DR. SULTAN is “working on a book that — if it is published — it’s going to turn the Islamic world upside down.”

“I have reached the point that doesn’t allow any U-turn. I have no choice. I am questioning every single teaching of our holy book.”

The working title is, “The Escaped Prisoner: When God Is a Monster.”

Dr. Sultan grew up in a large traditional Muslim family in Banias, Syria, a small city on the Mediterranean about a two-hour drive north of Beirut. Her father was a grain trader and a devout Muslim, and she followed the faith’s strictures into adulthood.

But, she said, her life changed in 1979 when she was a medical student at the University of Aleppo, in northern Syria. At that time, the radical Muslim Brotherhood was using terrorism to try to undermine the government of President Hafez al-Assad. Gunmen of the Muslim Brotherhood burst into a classroom at the university and killed her professor as she watched, she said.

“They shot hundreds of bullets into him, shouting, ‘God is great!’ ” she said. “At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god.”

She and her husband, who now goes by the Americanized name of David, laid plans to leave for the United States. Their visas finally came in 1989, and the Sultans and their two children (they have since had a third) settled in with friends in Cerritos, Calif., a prosperous bedroom community on the edge of Los Angeles County.

After a succession of jobs and struggles with language, Dr. Sultan has completed her American medical licensing, with the exception of a hospital residency program, which she hopes to do within a year. David operates an automotive-smog-check station. They bought a home in the Los Angeles area and put their children through local public schools. All are now American citizens.

BUT even as she settled into a comfortable middle-class American life, Dr. Sultan’s anger burned within. She took to writing, first for herself, then for an Islamic reform Web site called Annaqed (The Critic), run by a Syrian expatriate in Phoenix.

An angry essay on that site by Dr. Sultan about the Muslim Brotherhood caught the attention of Al Jazeera, which invited her to debate an Algerian cleric on the air last July.

In the debate, she questioned the religious teachings that prompt young people to commit suicide in the name of God. “Why does a young Muslim man, in the prime of life, with a full life ahead, go and blow himself up?” she asked. “In our countries, religion is the sole source of education and is the only spring from which that terrorist drank until his thirst was quenched.”

Her remarks set off debates around the globe and her name began appearing in Arabic newspapers and Web sites. But her fame grew exponentially when she appeared on Al Jazeera again on Feb. 21, an appearance that was translated and widely distributed by the Middle East Media Research Institute, known as Memri.

Memri said the clip of her February appearance had been viewed more than a million times.

“The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions or a clash of civilizations,” Dr. Sultan said. “It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality.”

She said she no longer practiced Islam. “I am a secular human being,” she said.

The other guest on the program, identified as an Egyptian professor of religious studies, Dr. Ibrahim al-Khouli, asked, “Are you a heretic?” He then said there was no point in rebuking or debating her, because she had blasphemed against Islam, the Prophet Muhammad and the Koran.

Dr. Sultan said she took those words as a formal fatwa, a religious condemnation. Since then, she said, she has received numerous death threats on her answering machine and by e-mail.

One message said: “Oh, you are still alive? Wait and see.” She received an e-mail message the other day, in Arabic, that said, “If someone were to kill you, it would be me.”

Dr. Sultan said her mother, who still lives in Syria, is afraid to contact her directly, speaking only through a sister who lives in Qatar. She said she worried more about the safety of family members here and in Syria than she did for her own.

“I have no fear,” she said. “I believe in my message. It is like a million-mile journey, and I believe I have walked the first and hardest 10 miles.”

Islam, Middle East, USA

When words lose their meaning, a people can move neither hand nor foot. Confucius

Originally Posted By 71-Hour_Achmed:No, that's not possible. All Muslims are inherently evil and must be killed. ARFCOM taught me so.

uh yeah read that again. She said she was "a secular person" who did'nt follow Islam, therefore (ergo) she is not a Muslim. It seems you are the ones who think just becuase someone is born a "muslim" that always makes them a Muslim. Kinda like saying all Arabs are Muslims, no? so you statement still does'nt hold water.

Originally Posted By 71-Hour_Achmed:No, that's not possible. All Muslims are inherently evil and must be killed. ARFCOM taught me so.

uh yeah read that again. She said she was "a secular person" who did'nt follow Islam, therefore (ergo) she is not a Muslim. It seems you are the ones who think just becuase someone is born a "muslim" that always makes them a Muslim. Kinda like saying all Arabs are Muslims, no? so you statement still does'nt hold water.

"Dr. Sultan grew up in a large traditional Muslim family in Banias, Syria, a small city on the Mediterranean about a two-hour drive north of Beirut. Her father was a grain trader and a devout Muslim, and she followed the faith’s strictures into adulthood."

*post contains personal opinion only and should not be considered information released in an official capacity*

Originally Posted By 71-Hour_Achmed:No, that's not possible. All Muslims are inherently evil and must be killed. ARFCOM taught me so.

uh yeah read that again. She said she was "a secular person" who did'nt follow Islam, therefore (ergo) she is not a Muslim. It seems you are the ones who think just becuase someone is born a "muslim" that always makes them a Muslim. Kinda like saying all Arabs are Muslims, no? so you statement still does'nt hold water.

"Dr. Sultan grew up in a large traditional Muslim family in Banias, Syria, a small city on the Mediterranean about a two-hour drive north of Beirut. Her father was a grain trader and a devout Muslim, and she followed the faith’s strictures into adulthood."

“They shot hundreds of bullets into him, shouting, ‘God is great!’ ” she said. “At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god.”

confirming my belief that Muslims that don't believe in blowing people up are "jack" muslims or non-practicians.

Still, refreshing to know that .00001 % of that population can come around and see the stupidity of their belief that blowing themselves up on restaurants and train stations will suddenly make everyone see how right they are and rally to their defense.

I still think the rest need to be expidited to ferilizer status ASAP. Refreshing call to reason though by this one woman.....

She is very brave and is a dead woman walking. Thought it was interesting how the Professor would not debate her just calls her a heritic. That actually says a lot, if thats the best that a friggen Professor can come up with it means that they are on undefenseble ground and they know it. The Islam elite are scared to death of her and what she stands so their only option is to kill her and her whole family to reestablish control over the masses.

i give this woman ALOT of credit, and really enjoyed her speech she gave on AL-jizzeera, its about time someone stands up and says what needed to be said. of course though, when preaching to Muslims and Islamic people, youre pretty much trying to reason with a brick wall.

but my question is- SHES IN THE UNITED STATES. WHAT ARE THE ODDS THEY CAN CARRY OUT THE DEATH THREATS ON HER?? do the muslims think shes dumb enough to be listed in the phone book? what are they going to fly someone over here, have him check the yellow pages for her name, and send someone to her house??

Originally Posted By builttoughf250: i give this woman ALOT of credit, and really enjoyed her speech she gave on AL-jizzeera, its about time someone stands up and says what needed to be said. of course though, when preaching to Muslims and Islamic people, youre pretty much trying to reason with a brick wall.

but my question is- SHES IN THE UNITED STATES. WHAT ARE THE ODDS THEY CAN CARRY OUT THE DEATH THREATS ON HER?? do the muslims think shes dumb enough to be listed in the phone book? what are they going to fly someone over here, have him check the yellow pages for her name, and send someone to her house??

She has family in Syria, that is the bigger threat. Just the threats keep the weak minded in line and that is the intention.

When words lose their meaning, a people can move neither hand nor foot. Confucius

The Satanic Verses coverThe Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie's fourth novel, first published in 1988 and inspired in part by the life of Muhammad. The title refers to the Satanic Verses, an attempted interpolation in the Qur'an described by Ibn Ishaq in his biography of Muhammad (the oldest surviving text). Many Muslims find Ibn Ishaq's story deeply disturbing and reject it as myth, while many Muslim scholars also reject the story as historically improbable and weakly attested.

The novel caused much controversy upon publication in 1988, as many Muslims considered that it contained blasphemous references (see The Satanic Verses controversy in the Salman Rushdie article). India was the first country to ban the book. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Shi'a Muslim scholar who was also the Supreme Leader of Iran, then issued a fatwa which called for the death of Rushdie and claimed that it was the duty of every Muslim to obey. On February 14, 1989, the Ayatollah broadcast the following message on Iranian radio: "I inform the proud Muslim people of the world that the author of the Satanic Verses book, which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Qur'an, and all those involved in its publication who are aware of its content are sentenced to death" 1. As a result, Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of the book was stabbed to death in July 1991, Ettore Capriolo, the Italian translator, was seriously injured in a stabbing the same month, and William Nygaard, the publisher in Norway, survived an attempted assassination in Oslo in October 1991. In 2006, the Iranian state news agency reported that the fatwa will remain in place permanently. [1]

I'm glad that this woman is in Los Angeles. Both because I like her viewpoint and am happy to have her as an American and also because I'm glad that she'll be able to keep her head for speaking her views.

"Our mission is to stop violent felons,There is no reason for anyone else to have that ability." -- Patrick Lynch, Patrolmen's Benevolent Association President

Originally Posted By builttoughf250: but my question is- SHES IN THE UNITED STATES. WHAT ARE THE ODDS THEY CAN CARRY OUT THE DEATH THREATS ON HER?? do the muslims think shes dumb enough to be listed in the phone book? what are they going to fly someone over here, have him check the yellow pages for her name, and send someone to her house??

They were able to find her number and leave harassing messages on her machine. Therefore, she must be listed.

*post contains personal opinion only and should not be considered information released in an official capacity*

Originally Posted By 71-Hour_Achmed:No, that's not possible. All Muslims are inherently evil and must be killed. ARFCOM taught me so.

uh yeah read that again. She said she was "a secular person" who did'nt follow Islam, therefore (ergo) she is not a Muslim. It seems you are the ones who think just becuase someone is born a "muslim" that always makes them a Muslim. Kinda like saying all Arabs are Muslims, no? so you statement still does'nt hold water.

"you are the ones"? No, the retards here on ARFCOM, such as yourself, who can't seem to get it through your pea-sized mushy brains that I'm not Muslim and never have been Muslim, are the ones who keep pushing the "all Muslims are baaaaaaaaaaaaad" line. You've made similar comments on other threads to me. You are a pinhead, man. Just because someone reads Terry Pratchett doesn't make him Islamic, much less Islamist.

Life here would be so much simpler if I'd been a Tom Clancy fan instead. On the other hand, I wouldn't have nearly as much fun taunting idiots like yourself, nor would I have learned just how rampantly bigoted people here are.